Over 90% of Portuguese beaches have 'excellent' water quality according to a report from the European Environment Agency and the European Commission which puts Portugal in sixth place in the league of member states.
The study looked at water quality in more than 22,000 bathing sites at beaches, rivers and lakes across Europe but the story is not so good for Portugal’s inland waterways used for bathing where of the 514 beaches analysed only 60% were classified as having excellent water.
In Portugal, 446 coastal beaches were evaluated of which 92% were classified as 'excellent.’
In Spain and Italy, only 80% of the beaches reached the ‘excellent’ level but ahead of Portugal for cleanliness were beaches in Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Slovenia and Malta.
Consumer group DECO alerted bathers to the many possible hygiene problems associated with many inland waterways used for swimming and reminded bathers that “although Community legislation only looks out for intestinal enterococci and E. coli, bathing water may be affected by the presence of salmonella or gastric viruses which are dangerous to humans."
DECO said that the water quality studies are incomplete unless the tests also looked for these pathogens and the fact that the testing standards adopted for inland waterways were slack when compared with beaches at the seaside, in fact the danger level is raised by 100% for inland water for no sensible consumer safety reason.
The official 2014 list was published in mid-May, well after the start of the bathing season for some beaches, which for DECO is "unacceptable" because, by law, the list should be published by March 1 of each year to give bathers warning of potentially dangerous areas.
